


The Tempest

by lorannah



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:17:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorannah/pseuds/lorannah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There was a plague," Merlin tells them, "And there was a battle. And there was a storm. But first there was a lie. No. There were many lies." Merlin tells the tale of how Arthur discovered his magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tempest

**Author's Note:**

> Download link: http://www.box.net/shared/0nkx4eza9c

 

PROSPERO

_...I have bedimm’d  
The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,  
And’ twixt the green sea and the azur’d vault  
Set roaring war. To dread rattling thunder  
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oak  
With his own bolt; the strong-bas’d promontory  
Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck’s up  
The pine and cedar. Graves at my command  
Have wak’d their sleepers, op’d, and let ‘em forth,  
By my so potent art. But this rough magic  
I here abjure;... I’ll break my staff,  
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,  
And deeper than did ever plummet sound  
I’ll drown my book.  _

  
(William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1)

 

Sometimes Merlin thinks it is his curse to relive all the old sins of his past – to feel the old scars, the hopes and the pain. To lay himself bare to all those who come calling for stories of Arthur. The hopeful wanderers – seekers of dreams.

There seem to be more at his door every day, ferreting his stories away from him. Mostly he does not begrudge them, though now he has grown tired. A long ache in his heart that he fears he shall not escape again. His bones are still strong, his legs and arms still sprightly, his mind still sharp. There is much he should be thankful for, but the curse is heavy on him, the constant retreading of old paths slowly wearing him away.

But this was not a path Merlin tread often, though it was one that gained curious enquiries from those who knew the history of Uther’s Camelot. When they ask, he smiles and rambles and plays the part of the kindly old man whose mind has wandered away.  Or he lies.

He doesn’t know why he does it, though he’s come up with dozens of excuses. Arthur would have said that was just like him – that he had barely finished the crime, before he started inventing a way to wriggle out of it.

Perhaps it is because he is never sure how to tell the tale – to form the emotions in ways that other people could comprehend.  He cannot make the words dance. The task is just too difficult. It’s a feeble excuse.

Perhaps it is the fear of how the stories will make Arthur look, that it might tarnish his shine. Or tarnish Merlin’s.

Perhaps it is simply that teenage boys are endlessly fools and it is infinitely kinder for people to forget and forgive their fears and indiscretions.

Perhaps it is because when you remember a beginning, you can also taste its end.

Whatever the truth, the fact remains that people know there was a time when Arthur did not know of Merlin’s magic and then there was a time when Arthur did. Something must fill the gap in between and sometimes Merlin feels that there are endless processions of seekers for that story.

Usually when he reluctantly agrees to speak to those who are too persistent, he fills the gap with tales and dreams. They spin effortlessly from his lips, almost forming themselves. Like magic. Each time is different, until a dozen such stories exist. Each with that extra edge of truth, because they spilled from Merlin’s mouth – each listener believing that his story is the truth. Until there are a dozen or more definitive answers drifting through the world.

They are all lies.

Arthur would have loathed them. Merlin can see his frown, in that part of his mind that is reserved just for Arthur. He was never built for lies and secrecy – sometimes it had seemed they were poisonous to his very essence. That was the reason so many people had been able to hurt him.

Perhaps it is because the thought has been lurking for a few days, Arthur’s frown, that when a new and earnest set of curious eyes arrive at his door, he makes a different choice. He lets those eyes steal the truth from him, just once, lets it loose amongst the other stories. As doubted and doubtful as all the others. But at least now it is free. It exists.

Or perhaps it is because they have come on this day, for it is anniversary of sorts. A memory of a change in the weather from long ago. Perhaps he is allowing that to make him maudlin and sentimental. Arthur would have mocked him for it.

He lets them settle before he starts, though in truth it takes longer to settle himself.

“There was a plague,” Merlin tells them, “And there was a battle. And there was a storm. But first there was a lie. No. There were many lies.”

* * * * *

Uther adjusted his gloves, fixing them tighter, an unpleasant look on his face. Distaste. “Magic?” He asked.

“It’s possible,” Gaius admitted.

Arthur tore his eyes away from his father and looked back at the man upon the pallet. Large boils had covered his face, a few already burst and his skin was slimy with sweat. He was pale, almost green and Arthur could hear his breath rasping across his throat.

“Very well,” Uther said. “Do what you can, see if you can discover a cure. Arthur, search Camelot, I expect you to locate the sorcerer who has committed this atrocity.”

Arthur nodded sharply as his father left the room. This was the fifth victim, a child had died that morning. Whatever it took to stop more deaths, he would do. He met Gaius’ eyes for a moment before he left and was already halfway down the corridor when he realised that Merlin had completely failed to follow him. Again.

With a sigh born completely of annoyance, he spun on his heels and went to fetch him. He found him crouched by the man, one hand softly against his cheek.

“Merlin,” Arthur said and the boy started guiltily, looking up at him and pulling his hand away so quickly it was like he had been burned. Arthur had no idea what to make of him sometimes.

“I... I thought I should stay and help Gaius,” he said, stumbling awkwardly to his feet.

“And how were you planning to do that?”

“Ummm... I could pass him things.”

“For hell’s sake, Merlin. You’ll only get in his way and as much as it pains me to say it, I might be able to find a use for you.”

There was a moment’s hesitation and Arthur had the sudden feeling he wasn’t being told something but then Merlin was back by his side and his mind could turn back to the search.

* * * * *

Much later as the days had grown short and his beard had grown long, Merlin had come to accept that it had only ever been a matter of time before Arthur discovered the truth about his magic. Even later than that he could admit that a part of him had longed for it. At the time, as it happened, it had felt like he was dying.

The plague had descended on Camelot almost overnight. Like a dark hand gripping its citizens and squeezing – fathers, sons, daughters, mothers, the elderly, the children, the infirm, the strong. Merlin could only remember the first few cases, the first few victims – his magic unable to touch them or heal them.

He remembered their eyes mostly - above the pustuled skin, the sweats, the green tinge  – but it was the eyes that haunted him, staring in terror at nothing. Nothing that he could see anyway.

After those first victims, those few, then the hand had gripped him and squeezed.

He’d seen it then, that invisible monster, the face of death. The thing they had been staring ar. Or at least he thought he had.

Merlin couldn’t remember. Once the plague had got him, all the memories were wrong – fractured, rootless, like pages torn from a book and lost in the water,  floating away just out of reach. He fears that one day old age will make such a mess of all his history.

“I grew ill,” he tells his guests, trying to capture the lost pages for them.

He remembers the face, or thinks he does.

He remembers Gaius leaning over him.

He remembers retching, just once, though maybe it had happened more than that.

He remembers vines of ivy climbing thickly up the walls of his room, growing before his eyes and knowing they could not be real. Turning the inside to outside. Then Gaius’ had come in, horrified and Merlin had known it was his magic – his magic, going wrong. Once the fever had passed, Gaius’ had told him he’d had to rip the plants from the walls and burn them in the night.

He remembers the fevered itching, that had made his skin feel like it was the wrong way round and the belief that it would never end – but now those long, endless hours are compressed into one single moment.

None of the memories are quite real. They have a sheen upon them, like he is seeing them through frosted glass, like they belong to someone else. Except for one memory. One memory is vivid and real and never changing. Fixed within him. He can still feel every second of it.

_Gaius is arguing with Arthur, he can hear them. Arthur wants to see him and doesn’t understand why he can’t. Merlin isn’t scared,  he knows Gaius will solve this, will stop Arthur. And the fever is burning inside him, beyond that, everything else is just outside noise._

_At first he’d barely noticed the fever was mixing with his magic, spilling outside his body._

_Then Arthur had burst into the room and found him, hands filled with fire, trying to hold it to himself, ignoring the burning because he couldn’t risk the flames getting free. The expression in Arthur’s eyes terrified him  - guilt and anger and fear. He tried to get to his feet, still clutching the fire, tried to get to Arthur and the world twisted round him until he couldn’t stand it anymore and he fell_.

By the next memory Arthur was gone.

Slowly the plague had ebbed away, leaving him cold and weak and lonely. Gaius thought it was his magic that had saved him; most of the other victims had died. He’d called it a blessing. It hadn’t felt like a blessing.

Arthur hadn’t come back. Merlin had managed to wait two days before he’d tried to see him – head filled with explanations and excuses and lies. All for nothing. Apologetic serious faced guards had told him the Prince did not wish to see him.  

“_He hasn’t told Uther_,” Gaius had said when he had returned defeated. “_That has to mean something. Give him time._” Merlin had wanted to believe him but there had been too many reasons why Arthur might not have told Uther. None of them had meant he would come back.

Merlin had stayed in Gaius’ rooms, had tried to help with finding the cure but he’d felt dull and useless and tired.  It was if the world had turned grey. Gaius had believed it to be the lingering of the plague, Merlin had known it to be otherwise.

Even when Morgana and Gwen had visited him, eyes concerned, lips filled with questions about Arthur - they hadn’t brought any colour into his world. Instead he’d lied to them, not told them anything, brushed away the questions and, in annoyance, they had snapped that Merlin and Arthur were as bad as each other. He couldn’t even remember who had said it – though it was probably Morgana.

“I was not sure he would speak to me again,” he tries to add a chuckle for the benefit of his listeners, to soften the thought, but it cannot get past the lump in his throat. The memory is making his soul feel old.

Without Arthur it had felt like... even far in the future that memory falters. It doesn’t matter. The feeling had ended - Arthur had come back. All annoyance and spite and anger and had said sorry, sort of, without quite saying it. But Merlin had thought things were falling back together.

The world had started shining again; even the plague had lost its power, lost its grip, drifted onwards.

He hadn’t realised then that Arthur’s return was under the assumption that they wouldn’t talk about magic again, that he wouldn’t use it. That they would both pretend it hadn’t ever happened.

* * * * *

Morgana came to him in a rage and having spent the day wandering the broken remnants of the kingdom, Arthur was too tired to fight her off. He sank onto the bed. “I don’t have time for this, Morgana.”

“How can you do this to him?” She demanded. A different approach to the wheedling attempts to find out what had happened. “Have you even seen him?”

“No,” Arthur replied, aware his voice sounded dead, “I haven’t seen him.”

“He’s been ill, he looks like he just about died – his clothes are hanging off him,” she hesitated for a second. “Even more than usual and he’s miserable.”

Arthur didn’t reply, he didn’t want to think about Merlin. He’d spent the last two weeks with images of the boy lurking in the corners of his eyes – he didn’t even know why he was there – why he couldn’t shake him away. He was just a servant, just a face that could be replaced and had been.

For god’s sake Arthur was even being nice to the new one. Pretending he liked him.

“Whatever he did – it was a mistake and I know-”

“You don’t know.”

“No, because you won’t tell me anything.”

He’d thought about telling her, thought about telling them all – angry and hurt and betrayed and wanting to lash out at Merlin. But it would have meant Merlin’s death, Merlin’s head on the block.  Would he have stood, impassively and watched as he had every time before. Could he? Even though Merlin didn’t matter, he couldn’t think about that.

“You won’t talk to anyone. You’re acting as if this doesn’t even matter.”

“It doesn’t – he’s just a servant. He doesn’t matter.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Why? Why wouldn’t I mean that? Have you seen what’s happening out there, Morgana. What’s already happened? So many of them have died.” It hurt to say it. “How could one person matter against that?”

“Is that what this is about?” She asked. “Is this some sort of punishment? This isn’t your fault, none of this is your fault.”

The memory of Anhora is still sharp and with it comes more thoughts of Merlin and a goblet and his willingness to die.

“How can you know that?” He asked. “What if it is my fault? What if I did something? What if someone else did...”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Since when did anything involving magic have to make sense,” he snapped at her, hearing the hidden question echoing  through his mind. _Since when did Merlin knowing magic make sense_?

 Morgana’s face sharpened, focused, became angrier. He’d seen her look at his father this way.

“He’s sorry,” she said, the anger in her voice a counterpoint to the tears on her cheeks. “Whatever it was, I know he’s sorry and if you don’t accept that, if you don’t let him back in, I think it’ll kill him.”

The pain was sudden and sharp, as if a sword had plunged into his gut and twisted. He bit down on the feeling, staring at the floor, trying to swallow the sensation, to master it. He saw the swirl of her brightly coloured skirts as Morgana moved closer, kneeling in front of him.

She took his hands first, lifting them from where they were curled against his bed. He felt her flinch as her fingers found the half healed burns. Turning his hands over, she traced the scars and he couldn’t hide his sharp, pained intake of breath. The skin was still new and tight and sore. The palms of his hand and, though she couldn’t see it, the skin of his chest – irretrievably, endlessly scarred.

For two weeks he had been hiding those scars away, hands encased in rough, itchy gloves. Wondering how his father coped with having his hands always enclosed. People had not noticed or had pretended not to. Perhaps they had thought he was mimicking his father or perhaps they had believed him too scared to touch the plague victims. Both ideas hurt.

“What happened?” Morgana asked.

“Nothing – an accident,” he said with a shrug, refusing to look at her. His eyes were filled with other visions. He could still see Merlin, wreathed in flame; could still feel how he burned as he tried to catch him. Tried to save him. Feeling as if his heart would burst if he failed. He didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to acknowledge that feeling.

There was a long pause as Morgana considered what she would say next, whether to accept the answer, whether to chase him. In the end she must have decided that other things were more important. Instead she took his face between his hands and forced him to look at her. Her eyes filled with compassion again.

“And you’re miserable too,” she told him, “Everyone sees it. You need him. Please, Arthur.”

* * * * *

Merlin had never discovered what Arthur thought had happened in his room that day but it hadn’t taken long to see the truth of Arthur’s forgiveness and then suddenly it was as if nothing had changed. He had still been hiding and pretending and not being himself. The difference was the deceit had tasted more bitter now Arthur had made himself part of the lie.

There were times that Merlin had caught Arthur watching him, when he thought he wouldn’t notice – doubt and suspicion still in his eyes, even if he was trying to hide it. Arthur had even stopped mocking and teasing him. Their relationship had suddenly become oddly professional.

In truth it had become the sort of relationship Merlin had imagined and dreaded when Uther had first pressed him into Arthur’s service. They had both been lying and Merlin had hated it.

And then there had been the execution.

Merlin could no longer remember his name, the victim – it had felt like it was burning inside him at the time and now it had just vanished as if it had never mattered. What Merlin remembered now was that he had been innocent. Some of them weren’t, but he had been. He’d barely even known any magic, he’d just been trying to save his daughter from the plague.

It hadn’t worked and Arthur had found him and then they’d both been damned. Child and parent.

Arthur had turned him in, like the others before him but that time it had suddenly been different – because now Arthur knew what Merlin was and he’d still done it. For the first time Merlin had felt like he could truly hate him.

He’d been angry, all those youthful feelings fighting within him and most of all he’d wanted to hurt Arthur – show him that he was wrong – that what he’d let Uther do was wrong.

There had been a fight, just him and Arthur and people who were angry at Uther – as always. Perhaps it had even been because of the execution, he didn’t remember, but then perhaps this memory loss wasn’t down to the dangers of old age, perhaps he’d never known, sometimes they hadn’t.

Arthur had been in the thick of it and Merlin had seen the danger when he hadn’t. A chance of proving him wrong even as he’d tried to convince himself that Arthur wouldn’t even notice because he never had before. All those times. So he’d rearranged the world a little until the danger was gone.

Of course, he’d been wrong, Arthur had known.

* * * * *

Arthur’s fists clenched as he watched the last of the attackers disappearing over the horizon. He’d forced himself to wait at least that long. He forced himself to wait longer, knowing that Merlin was stood just behind him. He forced himself to wait until even the sound of them had vanished and then, unable to wait any longer, feeling the anger surge through him in short jagged breaths, his fist curled into a ball he turned with a single motion and punched Merlin.

Merlin sprawled backwards onto the ground, powerless as a doll. His body jarring painfully. One part of Arthur was thinking that he was still too skinny, too weak, too fragile from the disease – the other part wanted to tear him apart.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Did you think I couldn’t do this without you and... and... that?” He demanded. Merlin looked up, blood spilling down from his nose and from a split in his lip. Arthur saw the various answers flashing across Merlin’s face, clear as day – he could see him considering which new lie to spin. “Do you really think I’m stupid?”

“Sometimes,” Merlin said angrily, wiping a hand under his nose and smearing the blood across his face as he climbed unsteadily to his feet.

Arthur hit him again, but this time Merlin was ready, he slipped sideways so Arthur’s fist only caught him a glancing blow. Knocking him but not felling him and then Merlin was seizing his shirt and they were struggling together.

It was hardly a fair fight, but for a moment it almost seemed it – it was certainly messy and undignified – as they clung together, hot and breathless. Then Arthur’s fist found Merlin’s jaw and the other boy was staggering backwards.

Arthur followed him, all the hurt and betrayal spilling out, his mind set on destruction and as Merlin looked up he saw those emotions reflected back at him. It didn’t shock him, it almost felt natural that this was what they’d become. He reached for him, joining them in this if in nothing else – his hands almost upon him when Merlin’s eyes turned suddenly golden and Arthur felt every muscle in his body freeze.

He couldn’t move, it was if something was holding him and then whatever it was began to squeeze. Even his throat felt like it would be forced closed – his head threatening to explode. Through pained eyes he could see Merlin, fury etched on his face and then sudden horror, his eyes fading back to blue.

The pain retreated, the invisible grip loosening.

“Arthur, I...” Merlin started, stepping closer.

Without thinking, Arthur seized his shirt, still angry but Merlin’s bloody face was scared and sorry and his rage ebbed away. Instead he stayed for a second, fingers still wrapped in the material, both trembling.

“Why? Why that? You didn’t even think about it, you just reached for that right away. Why?” Arthur wasn’t even sure if he wanted an answer. He didn’t want to know how deeply lost in the evils of magic Merlin had become.

“I-” Merlin began, but Arthur couldn’t listen to it. He shook him again silencing him. Then he pulled him closer until their foreheads were resting together.

“If you keep doing this,” Arthur told him, “if you don’t stop – I won’t be able to save you – to protect you. Please...”

Their eyes met, so close they filled the entire world and locked together.

“I promise,” Merlin said.

* * * * *

Merlin sometimes wondered why Arthur always stood out so vividly in his memories. There had been other people he cared about, other people who had mattered and none of them were still as alive for him as Arthur.

Perhaps Arthur is still so real because Merlin is still clinging to him. Hidden away within his home, he keeps his secret treasures, his remnants. A book, a fragment of red cloth, a silver goblet, the buckle of a belt – dragon shaped and glaring its disapproval. He would mock himself for how maudlin he has become, but he long since discounted his own opinion of himself. 

There is even the shadow of a scar upon his lip, hidden beneath his beard, still there in his old age – his fingers trace it sometimes, reassuring him that it lingers on. Like he allows everything to linger – all those marks of Arthur.

But then it isn’t just for him that Arthur lingers, sometimes it feels as if it were true for everyone. Across what had used to be Camelot people still dreamed of Arthur, still spoke of him with joy and reverential awe and sorrow, still believed in the ghost of him. Merlin’s own grief and hope echoing through an entire country.

He feels the weight of it sometimes, his responsibility to Arthur, heavier than his old age. But someone must tell the tales and few are left who could or would.

Uther is dead and Gaius. Morgana is long since gone. Even the knights, the faithful band, have scattered – blown across the world, forging stories of their own. And, of course, Gwen.

She is locked away now. It seems unendingly cruel, that she should be punished, when she alone did not tempt in the monsters. Merlin talked with them and Morgana danced amongst them and even Arthur had been tempted by their promises. Their monsters. But Gwen had not, never. She had only ever stood patiently waiting to heal their hurts, to mend their souls, fixing the fractured pieces back together. Loving too much. That’s how he remembers her – stood softly by endless bedsides. His own, Morgana’s, Arthur's, Lancelot's, Mordred's...

And so they keep her, away from human contact – within cold, stone walls. Untouched, unloved. Merlin sometimes thinks that perhaps the heavens had chosen punishments for them it thought fitting. Chosen the things that would hurt most. Gwen friendless, Morgana powerless, Arthur defeated as the darkness he controlled in himself manifested in others and Merlin...

The thought halts awkwardly, but then perhaps it is impossible to see the poetic justice in your own pain. Perhaps he is doomed to stay with only memories. It mattered little, the knowledge would not make the bearing of the punishment any easier. He’s not sure what could.

Expectant eyes are watching him, he has paused too long – he tears himself away from the thoughts.

“My apologies,” he tells them, trying to keep the weariness from his voice, “Age makes the mind wander. I could not keep my promise to Arthur,” he admits slowly.

That was the truth. Even with everything Arthur is and was and would be, Merlin couldn’t keep his promise to him.

He’d tried. He really had, fighting down the magic inside him – trying to bind it, control it, destroy it. Trying to be anything other than he was. All to no avail. It was too deeply engrained in his soul. The magic escaped again and again and though mostly he managed to hide it, Arthur saw it sometimes.

Saw it but didn’t say anything, his lips tight and eyes hard and Merlin remembered thinking that if he was destined to be anything, it was a disappointment.

Between them the world had grown colder and then something had shifted, just for a moment, and softened.

* * * * *

The child was falling, Arthur could see it but he was too far away. This wasn’t right, none of it. He couldn’t save him. After the plague, he’d never wanted to be in that situation again and this was too soon.

And then the boy wasn’t falling anymore, for a second he was just frozen and fleetingly Arthur wondered if his mind had done this to spare him the truth, but then he realised Merlin was close and turning he saw him – focused, his eyes blazing. The boy began to rise again, settling finally on the battlements. Safe.

Merlin blinked heavily, the colour of his eyes settling but he wouldn’t look at him and Arthur found he could not look away.

“I’m sorry,” Merlin said.

A heavy pause. “You saved him.”

Merlin looked up at him now, he looked scared. Scared to have saved a child’s life. But he didn’t look away again.

“How many people have you saved?” No response. Another question lingered on the edges of Arthur’s memory. Fleeting images of hopeless situation after hopeless situation. He remembers waking after the Questing Beast, waking to desperate eyes – to people who thought he was already dead and he hadn’t understood. Not then. He took a step closer. “How many times have you saved me?”

 “I don’t know,” he replied at last. “I don’t remember.” Then suddenly the words were coming faster as if they had been struggling to escape and were finally released. “I don’t mean to... I can’t help it... it just happens. It _always _has.”

The feelings felt jagged and rough inside Arthur. He could see it, Merlin saving life after life, a saviour, not a traitor, but if that were true about Merlin what about - the thought shuddered to a halt, lurking in the shadows as if it didn’t want him to look too closely. But he couldn’t go on ignoring what was in front of him. Not forever.

One day he’d have to work it out – was Merlin the exception or the rule.

Another step closer, hand reaching out, he wanted to touch the other boys face and for a moment he thought Merlin was leaning forward, but perhaps he was imagining it. Instead his hand settled on his shoulder.

“It’s...” he started, struggling to work out what he wished to say, but then there was no time.

Gaius was there, face grey, hands serious. Looking at him, looking at them both with sad eyes.

“The King is ill, Sire,” he said simply his eyes fixed upon Arthur.

“Is it the plague? Has it come back?”

“I don’t know yet.”

His tone said enough, plague or not it was serious. It was like the whole world was shattering, broken lines spilling outwards and destroying everything. For the briefest second Gaius’ eyes sought Merlin and Arthur’s followed – Merlin looked worried, horrified, concerned – but for a dizzying moment Arthur saw what his father’s death could mean for Merlin. Relief.

His hand fell back to his side, tightening.

* * * * *

Eventually, if given enough time and pain, changes that once felt momentous, shrink and begin to feel meaningless. One of the many lessons that Merlin had learnt at Arthur’s hands. One of the cold, hard lessons – others had been softer and warmer.

But those are other memories. Memories of sunny days, with no threat of darker storms. The memories he is trapped in now are not so pleasant. Not yet.

It had seemed for a shining moment, before Gaius had appeared and rearranged the world in his own quiet way, that Arthur had suddenly seen how wonderful magic could be. That he had seen what it could do for him... for Camelot.

Perhaps he had. Perhaps it was the sight of his father, trapped in bed, death clinging to him like silent, vengeful ghosts – that had tipped the balance again.

His magic was no longer forbidden, not in the way it had been before but it still had the taint of filth to it. Something unavoidable that should be kept behind closed doors. In Arthur’s eyes magic was still the enemy, it had not changed – it was only that it was Merlin who held it cupped in his hand that was the difference.

There had been a time that Merlin had yearned for that, for Arthur accepting the truth of him but it had suddenly not been enough. It had always seemed strange how old longings once satisfied, would be replaced by new ones.

Still it had been almost inevitable that a new change would come, another step taken towards their final destination. And like always it had come with enemies at their door and Camelot threatening to crash down around them.

* * * * *

Arthur stared out of his window, across the courtyard. A few lost souls were wandering through the darkness. It had been weeks since the plague had claimed its last victim but everybody still seemed fragile. The King was ill and too many of them of them had died. That was the problem – the King was dying and too many of them were gone.

And those two facts had travelled, had crawled away from Camelot in the darkness, skulking amidst endless shadows, hunting out new ears. It had only ever been a matter of time till someone listening had seen their weakness.

He had only hoped it was going to be a small enemy they faced first. He should have realised that hope was just another lie, mixing in with so many others. By now he should be used to them, they shouldn’t have the power to hurt him. But Vortigern was not a small enemy.

Arthur heard Merlin enter the room quietly. He ignored him, not turning around, watching a few more stragglers limping through the gate. People were fleeing the countryside, those that could, each with the same story on their lips. An army was coming.

And too many of them had died.

 There were only a few knights remaining now and even if he forced every man in the kingdom to fight there wouldn’t be enough to defend them. He had a sudden image of Gwen and Morgana frowning at him and amended the thought – even if he recruited every man and woman in the kingdom, there wouldn’t be enough people to defend them.

“I was talking to the survivors,” Merlin said quietly, “they’ll be here tomorrow.” Merlin didn’t speak again, perhaps he was waiting for an answer but Arthur’s mind was chasing itself in circles and tying itself in knots. Eventually Merlin couldn’t take it any longer. “What are we going to do?” He asked.

“We’ll wait a few hours more,” Arthur told him, his voice suggesting certainty – another lie, perhaps he was learning, “In case more people come and then we’ll close the gates and barricade them. If we man the battlements we should be able to withstand them.”

The next silence felt nervous and when Merlin finally spoke he sounded tense.

“They said there were five hundred of them. At least.”

It was almost like being trapped in a shipwreck, the waves and thunder crushing down upon him. An old man had told him of that terror once and it had drifted sideways into his dreams – another man’s terror. He took a deep breath to break the illusion and then Arthur turned to look at Merlin. He was sat on the end of Arthur’s bed, pale and tired and scared and very young.

It took a moment for Arthur to reconcile this Merlin with the other Merlin, the one he wished wasn’t real and now needed to be. He needed to finally break down the wall in his head that held the two apart, inviolable. Because deep down he knew there wasn’t good magic and bad magic – there was just magic – magic and people.

“You didn’t just save people, did you?” He asked and a shadow seemed to pass across Merlin’s eyes. “You killed them as well?”

Merlin met his gaze for a second as if it were a challenge. “Sometimes those were the same things,” he said. Arthur nodded, he could understand that, though something in Merlin’s eyes made him wonder whether Merlin truly believed it.

Still, there was no time for such tender concerns now.

“I need you to kill again,” he told him.

Merlin looked away, breathing sharply out through his nose and then, silently, nodded.

* * * * *

“As the army gathered,” Merlin told them, “I climbed to the highest tower.”

Still he remembers each step – his feet had been heavy, his soul heavier. It had not been the thought of more killing that had weighed him down. It had been the look in Arthur’s eyes.

Arthur had finally perceived what magic could do. And Merlin had become a tool, a weapon – something that Arthur could direct against an enemy. He had felt suddenly lifeless, in that darkened room, stripped of his humanity.

He had no longer known if Arthur cared for him, the brief certainty of love after Arthur’s forgiveness had slowly been torn away by everything that followed. It had felt like he’d been turned round to face a darker door. A door where he could be of use but not of concern.

“The sun was already rising. Arthur waited below. I was finally to be useful. In my mind I built a model of Camelot...”

It had grown slowly and once it was done he had filled it with people - he had seen each of them, their movements, the minutiae of their day. And beyond the walls he’d seen the gathering army, like a storm on the horizon.

And through it all Arthur had shone like a beacon, even in the darkness, and as he waited for the battle to begin Merlin had watched him.

 * * * * *

People always said it was the waiting that was worst and Arthur supposed they were sort of right, at least they were in those bits in between the bigger bits where they were completely wrong.

One of the knights, Orin, had tried to explain it to him once. He’d gone on about the uncertainty – that it was the uncertainty that made the waiting an agony. Arthur hadn’t got it – everything was uncertain – life was uncertain. You’d wake up one day thinking you knew everything and the next Merlin had magic. And the most uncertain bit – the bit when you never knew what was going to happen, came after the waiting. It was the moment when you stood with a sword in your hand and had no idea what the enemy would do next. Arthur hadn’t understood why Orin hadn’t seen that.

Orin was dead now.

The first boom echoed through the silence as the enemies ‘ battering ram hit the wood of the door. Arthur’s hand tightened on his sword as he waited for the world to become a little more uncertain. It was still stiff and uncomfortable after the burns, but it was learning how to manage a sword again – he was learning.

His mind drifted for a second to Merlin, alone, the most uncertain thing of all. Arthur needed this to work and had no idea if it would. He forced his mind back, tearing it away from the open skies – he needed to focus.

He could not think of Merlin now.

* * * * *

Merlin doesn’t remember the battle, though he tells the story anyway.

“The fighting continued for over three days,” he tells them, “Vortigern’s forces concentrated on hitting strategic points, weak areas, one after the other. Sometimes all together. They knew Arthur did not have enough men...”

It must seem to his eager audience that he knows every part of the fight intimately, he fills in the details, spins it into something grand and filthy. But it’s not a memory. Not what other people mean by memory.

Partly it is that he knows what he must have done – strengthening the walls, fixing the cracks, saving people, destroying them. And what Arthur must have done.

But it’s not just that. It’s too real for that. Instead it’s a tapestry made up of other people’s memories, other people’s stories. So real that you almost feel like you were there – a strange thought as Merlin actually was – but now his presence, his place in those scenes are imagined.

Except for one memory. Just one. It was not one he’d talked about with anyone, not even Arthur – so that at least must truly have been his.

* * * * *

Arthur saw the arrow coming towards him, straight and true and deadly and he thought for a horrified, hysterical second that it would be ridiculous if this was how he died, with an arrow in his eye. The world seemed incredibly sharp and bright and focused – the battling figures, the blood, the bodies, the fractured gate, the dawn.

Then the arrow froze, simply stopped, unmoving in the air. Arthur stared at it and growling, brushed it aside. “Dammit, Merlin, stop protecting me, you’re needed elsewhere.” The arrow clattered to the floor.

This was the third day the sun had risen – the third day of fighting. Arthur had snatched a few hours sleep in the night, a few more the morning before. But no more. He was exhausted. And it was getting worse. This was the fourth time the enemy had broken through, they could not take much more.

The air quivered for a second around them and then without warning there was a sudden gust of wind. It nearly knocked him to the floor and he flinched against it. When he looked up again fragments of the gate were rushing past him, gathering, reforming and then it was solid again, as good as ever.

The enemy hesitated, suddenly trapped and then there was a sudden burst of movement and it was over. They were over.

Arthur breathed out slowly and ran a hand across his face, it was rough and sticky with sweat and blood and dirt. He walked slowly towards the trough of water, wishing he could knead the ache of exhaustion out of his bones but unwilling to even hint at that sign of weakness. He could see the despair in people’s faces – they needed hope and strength and belief – they needed him to be those things.

Instead he used a handful of the water to rub the worst of the muck from his face and then, cupping his hand around another, took a long drink.

That was how Morgana found him, her own face smeared and ferocious, dressed for battle. He’d forbidden her from fighting, of course, knowing that she would do it anyway. But it had been what his father would have wanted him to do.

Arthur suddenly saw an image of Uther as he had last seen him – pale and old amidst his bed clothes, Gaius at his side. Gaius had not left him since he had become ill. He seemed broken by the king’s disease, by the chance he might lose him.

He wondered if Merlin would one day sit by his own bed that way. Loyal to the end.

He was not even certain that Gaius knew about the battle. He hadn’t told him. He hadn’t wanted to take him away from his father. Arthur had barely been able to tear himself away – but sometimes there was no choice, he could not leave Camelot’s walls.

“Nice to know you at least are following my orders,” he told Morgana angrily.

“You have to go to Merlin,” she said. He hesitated.

“Why do you keep saying that?”

 “Go to him.”

“I can’t. Do you think I can leave-”

Morgana gripped his arm. “I mean it, Arthur. He hasn’t slept, hasn’t eaten, I don’t think he’s even moved – not since before this started. He won’t listen to us, I don’t even know if he can hear us or see us. He’s hardly breathing, it’s like he’s dea... If he doesn’t stop, he’ll die and _he won’t listen to us_.”

Her voice was desperate and for a moment Arthur was silent, frozen, lost. Then he was running, the castle passing beneath his feet. He could not believe Merlin was being this stupid.

Arthur reached the top of the tower, his body screaming against him, his heart trying to break free. He stopped in the doorway. Merlin was sat cross legged, his back rigid, his arms and head moving in jerky motions. Gwen was sat in front of him, hands on his knees – but Merlin’s eyes never met hers.

She looked up at Arthur, the desperation in Morgana’s voice written clear upon her face. She shook her head.

Arthur breathed deeply and shut his eyes for a second against the painful beating of his heart.

Then he stepped across the threshold. Merlin’s head turned swiftly to face him. His eyes were pure gold, almost on fire – but his face was lifeless and Arthur knew what Morgana had meant. 

Gwen rose quickly and stepped back, giving him room but taking the next step forwards took all Arthur’s strength. This was uncertainty. This was fear. He took the step and another.

“You can stop,” he said not wanting to come any closer, to this thing that was not Merlin, his voice sounding weak in his own ears. Merlin did not move for a second and then his hand swung upwards behind him, his eyes still fixed on Arthur. He felt the shudder run through the castle.

“I mean it,” he said, voice more certain now, letting anger instead of fear colour his words. “Stop! That’s an order, Merlin. Stop it. I won’t let you kill yourself. I won’t let you kill him.”

Arthur reached out – wanting to shake him, to hurt him, to break him loose – his hand touching his shoulder and Merlin gasped. His whole body sucking in painful gasps, loosening until he fell. Arthur caught him in his arms. Sinking with him to the floor. Cradling him.

He thought for a moment he had saved him but then he saw his eyes – still golden, still dangerous – and it was as if the world had suddenly grown dark.

It was a long moment before Arthur realised it truly had. He looked up at the sky, so clear and bright before and saw dark storm clouds racing towards them, gathering, twisting above their heads. He knew instinctively that this was Merlin’s doing, all that power from the slim boy convulsing in his arms. As the rain began to pound down around them in heavy droplets, painful against his skin, Arthur realised, for the first time, that he was scared of Merlin. Terrified.

None of it mattered.

He gripped him harder, clutching him closer, trying to cover him with his cloak and protect him from the rain. Around them thunder roared and lightning flashed, close but never close enough to hurt them, to hurt anyone inside Camelot. Below he could see people running for shelter and he realised, painfully, that those outside the walls had none and most of them would die.

Destroyed by a small broken boy on a lonely tower.

He held him still, feeling the shivers subside, ignoring the rain pounding around him and soaking them both. Unable yet to move.

Looking back at Merlin’s face he saw the muscles around the eyes relaxing, the first blink as eyelashes swept across his cheekbones and for a moment Arthur thought he was sleeping or dying and his fingers bit deeper into Merlin’s skin. The eyes flicked open again – bright blue – and found him.

“Arthur?”

He kissed him, lips meeting, as the heavens tore themselves open around them and the sky shuddered.

* * * * *

There are many stories to tell about Arthur and Merlin has told them all – bar one.

He doesn’t tell it even now, his words falter and instead he tells them how Arthur dragged him from the tower. It is not fear or shame or embarrassment that still’s his tongue. It’s possessiveness. Selfishness wins out, he will keep this one part of Arthur for himself.

The night grows dark and his guests’ leave – their words weighed down with thanks and gratitude and praise. Something close to inspiration shining in their eyes. They might go on to do great things, others have – or they might forget, though Merlin thinks they will not.

It is enough for now that they have left.

He remembers the feel of Arthur’s lips, gritty and chapped and broken. The taste of old blood and sweat. The way the rain slid across their skin. The heaviness of his cloak. Their hearts beating against each other’s chest.

And he remembers that for one moment, at least, they had breathed together. One person. One soul. Two sides of the same coin. Heavy with anticipation.

Perhaps this is his blessing – his blessing and his curse - that in the end he is left alone with these memories.

 

 

ARIEL

_Do you love me, master? No?_

PROSPERO

_Dearly, my delicate Ariel._

  
(William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1)

**Author's Note:**

> My policy on permissions for use of my work is that you don't in fact need my permission to make art, record podfic, remix, critique, translate, save, share or otherwise reuse and interact with anything I've done. I'd love it if you'd share a link with me when you're done.
> 
> Any comments are also welcome – I'd love to hear what worked for you and (truly) what didn't or about those really obvious typos that my mind can't see anymore. If you don't want to comment publicly, feel free to e-mail me. Everything and anything will be loved and cherished.


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